Alisa Alering on Being the Mountain

Welcome to I’m a Writer But, where writers discuss their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done. Plus: book recommendations, bad jokes, okay jokes, despair, joy, and anything else going on that week. Hosted by Lindsay Hunter.    

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Today, Alisa Alering discusses their debut novel, Smothermoss, growing up on a farm, writerly trickery, place, southern Pennsylvania, how unlimited access to the outdoors as a child influenced their writing, what time means to a mountain, the energy of the natural world, the real-life tragedy that features in the novel, setting the novel in the 1980s, starting the novel as a collage, and so much more!

From the episode:

Alisa Alering: What’s very true for me in my writing process is it’s one of listening. I’m trying really hard to tune in to what’s underneath all the stupid noise in my brain. So in some ways, it’s like, What is the cat really trying to convey? What is my horse try to convey? I have to try to let go of preconceived notions, try not to overlay it with how I would act–try not to be too human about it. I feel like the relation to the natural world–the plants, even the geologic world in the story–very much is that kind of communication. It’s like, what would it be like to be the mountain?

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Alisa Alering grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. After attending Clarion West, their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.